Re: Beyond: Two Souls (PS3)
I finished this earlier and I liked it, wasn't blown away, but it was good. Since it's the only other game like it, I'll make some comparisons to Heavy Rain.
Graphics
Both games looked great, but Beyond was absolutely a step above, without a doubt one of the best looking games this gen. It really had some great moments and locations. Actors most definitely looked like themselves (though that's not surprising, considering I recognized the guy from Heavy Rain as being the cop from Fifth Element) and conveyed their acting convincingly, the exceptions to this was smiling (not sure why the smiling was just so bad, maybe it was stretching the lip meshes around the teeth) and kissing (which was awful, and LISTENING to the kissing was a little nauseating).
Story
The story for Beyond was quite a bit more taught than Heavy Rain, partially due to Heavy Rain having a chunk (rightfully) cut out of it late in the game, and had few plot holes. The downside here is the story was absolutely more linear. That's not to say the story in Beyond was absolutely linear, failure in some parts does mean missing some small parts of the story, for good or ill, and those failures to marginally change later parts of the game. For the most part, though, the story in Beyond was a straight line, there weren't any major changes like there were in Heavy Rain. The story in Beyond isn't told linearly, it's told in chunks jumping from different points in time. It makes sense in the end, but I can't help thinking the game would be better laid out chronologically.
Beyond doesn't quite have the emotional impact of Heavy Rain, but that's because Heavy Rain's story was more about anguish, loss, guilt, anger, etc all in a frantic chase to save your son. Beyond definitely had it's own share of emotional moments, but it was more of a slow burn of misery. Don't think that leaves Beyond without some tense moments, it definitely had some times where your heart was in your throat, and it also had some moments where you might rage out a bit within the confines of the game.
Acting
The acting in Beyond was MUCH better than Heavy Rain, but that should be a given considering the actors on the marquee. The other actors were up to snuff too though, Kadeem Hardison was definitely good as was pretty much everyone else in the game (even the kids). There wasn't a truly low spot here.
Gameplay
I wasn't a fan of the action sequences, I found it really hard to know where they wanted you to press as the direction felt random at times, so I played most of the game in "I don't play games often" mode so it prompted you with a direction. Speaking of, I didn't like the slow-mo "wait for button push" action sequences at times, for one because it would have been better to just hit a button to jump over a fence (for instance) rather than having to wait for a slow motion to activate before it would register the button push. A simple tweak of just bringing up the prompt and opening up input slightly before fading to grey and waiting for input would have been a welcome change and would have given less interruptions to action flow. That wasn't that bad though, and I got used to it towards the end. Most everything else was fairly similar to Heavy Rain.
Navigating was a little rough at times, with camera angles determining scene interaction prompts, there were times where I would have to pace back and forth just to get the camera to swing around so I could interact with something, that was a little obnoxious. I wasn't a fan of controlling Aiden, the way he just moved from point to point rather than being able to just fly around, it made some things too easy and obvious (for instance if you needed to do something with Aiden just fly to the orange marker and it would be right there, looking for the collectables just fly around with Aiden and if there is one around the orange marker will point you right at it when you go there).
The game had a habit of throwing in conversation prompts in what seemed like non-interactive scenes, and they don't pop up forever, so I missed a couple of prompts and didn't have but a split second to decide on others. Again, I learned part way through to never look away or sit the controller down, but it would have been nice to get a tad more time and maybe a prompt to some of these isolated prompts (like have Jodie think to herself "what the hell do I say to that?" or something, to give an extra response time and wake up the player). But that's another small quibble.
I definitely think Beyond was a great game, I may even put it above Heavy Rain (that's hard to give a definitive choice to, considering one is a relatively distant memory and ht other I just finished), it's at the very least right there with Heavy Rain.
I finished this earlier and I liked it, wasn't blown away, but it was good. Since it's the only other game like it, I'll make some comparisons to Heavy Rain.
Graphics
Both games looked great, but Beyond was absolutely a step above, without a doubt one of the best looking games this gen. It really had some great moments and locations. Actors most definitely looked like themselves (though that's not surprising, considering I recognized the guy from Heavy Rain as being the cop from Fifth Element) and conveyed their acting convincingly, the exceptions to this was smiling (not sure why the smiling was just so bad, maybe it was stretching the lip meshes around the teeth) and kissing (which was awful, and LISTENING to the kissing was a little nauseating).
Story
The story for Beyond was quite a bit more taught than Heavy Rain, partially due to Heavy Rain having a chunk (rightfully) cut out of it late in the game, and had few plot holes. The downside here is the story was absolutely more linear. That's not to say the story in Beyond was absolutely linear, failure in some parts does mean missing some small parts of the story, for good or ill, and those failures to marginally change later parts of the game. For the most part, though, the story in Beyond was a straight line, there weren't any major changes like there were in Heavy Rain. The story in Beyond isn't told linearly, it's told in chunks jumping from different points in time. It makes sense in the end, but I can't help thinking the game would be better laid out chronologically.
Beyond doesn't quite have the emotional impact of Heavy Rain, but that's because Heavy Rain's story was more about anguish, loss, guilt, anger, etc all in a frantic chase to save your son. Beyond definitely had it's own share of emotional moments, but it was more of a slow burn of misery. Don't think that leaves Beyond without some tense moments, it definitely had some times where your heart was in your throat, and it also had some moments where you might rage out a bit within the confines of the game.
Acting
The acting in Beyond was MUCH better than Heavy Rain, but that should be a given considering the actors on the marquee. The other actors were up to snuff too though, Kadeem Hardison was definitely good as was pretty much everyone else in the game (even the kids). There wasn't a truly low spot here.
Gameplay
I wasn't a fan of the action sequences, I found it really hard to know where they wanted you to press as the direction felt random at times, so I played most of the game in "I don't play games often" mode so it prompted you with a direction. Speaking of, I didn't like the slow-mo "wait for button push" action sequences at times, for one because it would have been better to just hit a button to jump over a fence (for instance) rather than having to wait for a slow motion to activate before it would register the button push. A simple tweak of just bringing up the prompt and opening up input slightly before fading to grey and waiting for input would have been a welcome change and would have given less interruptions to action flow. That wasn't that bad though, and I got used to it towards the end. Most everything else was fairly similar to Heavy Rain.
Navigating was a little rough at times, with camera angles determining scene interaction prompts, there were times where I would have to pace back and forth just to get the camera to swing around so I could interact with something, that was a little obnoxious. I wasn't a fan of controlling Aiden, the way he just moved from point to point rather than being able to just fly around, it made some things too easy and obvious (for instance if you needed to do something with Aiden just fly to the orange marker and it would be right there, looking for the collectables just fly around with Aiden and if there is one around the orange marker will point you right at it when you go there).
The game had a habit of throwing in conversation prompts in what seemed like non-interactive scenes, and they don't pop up forever, so I missed a couple of prompts and didn't have but a split second to decide on others. Again, I learned part way through to never look away or sit the controller down, but it would have been nice to get a tad more time and maybe a prompt to some of these isolated prompts (like have Jodie think to herself "what the hell do I say to that?" or something, to give an extra response time and wake up the player). But that's another small quibble.
I definitely think Beyond was a great game, I may even put it above Heavy Rain (that's hard to give a definitive choice to, considering one is a relatively distant memory and ht other I just finished), it's at the very least right there with Heavy Rain.
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